( 1. ) THIS is a reference under Section 23 (1) of the Central Provinces and Berar Sales Tax Act, 1947, by the Board of Revenue, and the questions presented for decision are :

(1) Whether the assessee-company who purchased during the course of two assessment periods building materials (iron and cement) on several occasions and sold the said materials from time to time to contractors, who were constructing buildings for the assessee-dealer, is a dealer within the meaning of Section 4 of the C. P. and Berar Sales Tax Act ? (2) Whether the assessee is liable to pay sales tax on such sales ? (3) Whether the Board of Revenue could take oral submissions on question of fact into consideration when there was a clear finding of the Sales Tax Commissioner regarding frequency of sales and profits made by the assessee on the sales in question?

( 2. ) THE questions arise in the following circumstances. The Bengal Nagpur Cotton Mills Ltd. , Rajnandgaon, gave a contract for the construction of some buildings to J. K. Mitra and Co. The mills obtained steel and cement required for the constructional work and handed over the material to their contractors. The price of the material was debited to the contractors account. The supply of the material by the mills to the contractors was from time to time till the completion of the buildings. During the assessment periods from 1st April, 1949, to 31st December, 1949, and from 1st January, 1950, to 31st December, 1950, the total price of the material supplied was Rs. 66,396-7-3. The Sales Tax Authority regarded the supply of material to the contractors as sale transactions taxable under the Act and accordingly assessed the mills to sales tax on these transactions. The assessee unsuccessfully appealed to the Sales Tax Commissioner. Thereupon a revision petition was preferred before the Board of Revenue by the assessee which was allowed and it was held that the assessee was not liable to pay any sales tax on the price of the material supplied to the contractors. The present reference is at the instance of the Sales Tax Commissioner,

( 3. ) THE material provisions of the Act which require consideration are the definitions of "dealer" and "sale". Section 2 (c) of the Act defines "dealer", thus dealer means any person who, whether as principal or agent, carries on in Madhya Pradesh the business of selling or supplying goods, whether for commission, remuneration or otherwise and includes a firm, a partnership, a Hindu undivided family and the Central or a State Government or any of their departments and includes also a society, club or association selling or supplying goods to its members ; * * * * "sale" is defined by Section 2 (g) as under sale with all its grammatical variations and cognate expressions means any transfer of property in goods for cash or deferred payment or other valuable consideration, including a transfer of property in goods made in course of the execution of a contract, but does not include a mortgage, hypothecation, charge or pledge; and the word purchase shall be construed accordingly. * * * * Under Section 5 of the Act sales tax is payable by a dealer on his taxable turnover of the goods specified in the schedule as liable to tax. The Sales Tax Act does not impose sales tax on all goods but only on those goods specified in Schedules I and II. It does not again impose the tax on the mere sale or purchase of the goods specified in the schedules. What is taxable under the Act is the sale of these goods which are effected by a dealer. The definition of "dealer" shows clearly that every seller of a commodity is not a dealer. In order to constitute a person a dealer he must be engaged, whether as principal or agent, in the business of selling or supplying goods. The definition of "dealer" read with the definition of "sale" makes it clear that the transfer of property in the goods by one person to another should be in the course of the business of selling or supplying the goods. It